I Love You I am at Rest with You I have Come Home
by Starjargon
Summary: River willingly gives the Doctor her nights. She just can't always be sure what that entails. Written for trope prompt: sharing a bed. Absolute fluff. T for supposed implications.


**A/N- Written for DW_allsorts community on LJ prompt table. Prompt was Tropes: Sharing a Bed. I took that idea and my brain ran away with it. Fluff galore. Title from Dorothy L. Sayers. **

******I blame the amazing morganfm for this, as she was the motivation behind this story & patiently reread every version over and over.  
**

* * *

"Doctor, when I said I'd repay you that favour with a sleepover, this is not what I had in mind," River commented, brow raised and hand on hip as she took in the room the Doctor had obviously prepared for tonight.

"I know! Isn't this so much better?! Who needs sleep when we could do _this_ instead?" He held his arms out wide, showing her how much effort he'd put into preparation.

River looked around once more, unsure, before meeting his eyes hesitantly again.

"Well, Sweetie- I realize we often have differing ideas of fun, and I know I said _anything_, but this might be taking it a bit far, don't you think? I mean, I'm not so sure this is the best time for our first-"

"River, River, River- you're my wife. This is something I _know_ you and I would be brilliant at together, my bad, bad girl. No one else would understand! Just ask yourself- how often do we ever sync up at the right time for this kind of thing?" He looked so joyful as he gazed deep into her eyes, his hands reassuringly at her shoulders as he calmed her down before turning and jumping giddily on the bed.

"I suppose you're right, dear," she relented with a sigh.

"Of course I'm right. Now, if we are going to do this, you need to fully commit. You have to be absolutely sure you won't just quit halfway through and leave me to do all the work."

"When have I ever-" she scoffed indignantly.

"No, no, dear- you're absolutely right. I have no reason to doubt you. Sorry I brought it up," he waved his hand apologetically.

She sighed once more, and then looked at him, staring hopefully up at her from the bed- everything perfect for his plans that night.

"Okay, Doctor. You're right. I trust you. Completely. And I did promise you anything." She looked around the room once again before she gave a shrug, ready for whatever activity her husband had clearly intended for them tonight. There was just one small issue. "So," she said, kicking off her shoes as she joined him on their bed, " how do we do this?"

"You mean," he licked his lips as he looked up into her face, eyes wide as he tried to hide his astonishment, "you've never done this before?!"

She levelled her gaze at him.

"I was born and raised to kill you, dear. Between my days alone in the orphanage, starving on the street, assassin training, and making sure my parents got together so I could be born, it didn't exactly leave me with a lot of time for... things like this."

"Good point," he said- a thoughtful look on his face as he pondered the unexpected development in the situation. "Well," he spoke at last with a clap as he turned to face her- his smile wide and reassuring. "Just follow my lead, wife- you happen to have married an expert."

"Have I now? I can't say I'm really surprised, at your age," she said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

He opened his mouth to gloat, and then realized he needed to amend the comment before it left him.

"Well, not so much in this body. This type of situation has never really... come up yet," he looked away, lost once more in thought.

"Never?" asked River incredulously.

He turned toward her then, lifting his own eyebrow in concern.

"You do remember I started right off travelling with your mother, right? Can you even imagine what she would have done had I even _suggested_ doing something like this with her?"

"I imagine she would have enjoyed it actually-"

"And when Rory came on board," he continued as though she hadn't interrupted, "well, the mere thought of this became... impossible. Dread to think how he would have reacted, had I even mentioned it-"

"Rory, I'll give you," River nodded in agreement. "You most definitely would not have liked what he would have had to say on the matter. You would never have lived it down."

They leaned back in silence, resting against the headboard. Then, River looked over at him, taking a deep breath as she turned to face him fully.

"So," she said lightly, "how does this work? Do we plan it out, or just sort of- go for it?"

The Doctor leant forward, cupping her chin in his hand as he kissed her briefly on the nose, before pulling back and smiling.

"Trust me?"

"Always."

"Good! Because I _do_ happen to have a plan for us!"

She rolled her eyes fondly at him, reaching out to take his hand in hers.

"Of course you do, Sweetie," she said, a twinkle in her eye as she prepared to qualify her compliment. "Now- I do think we should discuss what we each _actually_ expect to happen for when that plan fails miserably."

"Oi!" he looked at her, offended that she assumed he hadn't thought this through with several contingencies. He hadn't really, but how could she dare to think such a thing?

She winked at him, pulling him in for a kiss, and sighing happily into his mouth.

"Now," she purred against his lips, "about that plan of yours..."

* * *

"Are they out there yet?" Rory asked Amy as she came back into their room with lunch, picking up her controller so they could continue their game.

"Nope. Still haven't come out of their room. And from the sound of it, I think it'll be a while yet," she said, not facing him as she continued staring at the screen, trying to erase any images her mind had unwittingly conjured.

"Could have done without that bit of information," Rory remarked matter-of-factly.

"Well, you deserve it. You weren't the one who passed by and heard them shrieking and giggling like teenagers. It's bad enough knowing it's our daughter in there, but the _Doctor?_"

"Is it a betrayal of the father-code to say I agree with you on the Doctor bit more than the daughter bit?"

"Of course not, Stupid Face. You should always agree with me," she smiled smugly, still not looking at him except from the corner of her eyes.

He rolled his, reaching out an arm to wrap around her and pull her to him for a kiss, before concentrating on the screen in front of them.

"Well," Amy said at last, "I guess I am happy for them, in a way. That they found something safer that they enjoy as much as life- threatening adventures."

Rory grunted his reluctant agreement, as they both settled into the large hammock that had unfortunately replaced their bunkbeds, anticipating an unusually calm day. (_A bed that swings- it's cool_!)

* * *

The Doctor growled in frustration even as River giggled breathlessly in delight. .

"Okay, my love, I admit it- this was one of the best plans you've ever had!" She hid behind a cover, the smile lighting her face flirty and mischievous..

"Oh, don't think flattery's going to save you now, Song. We had an agreement and you broke it!" The Doctor's pout was _almost_ enough to make her give in once more. But not quite.

"I agreed to let you do whatever you wanted, dear. I never said I wouldn't do what I wanted as well."

"River!"

"Nope, Doctor, I told you. You stay off my side."

"But- but..." He looked petulantly over in her direction, envious of all the bedclothes that had the honour of adorning his glorious wife's half.

"It's not fair!" he shouted, as she once more erupted into a loud fit of giggles, blankets flying up around him. "I can't even see you!" he said, as he was once more stopped from moving in her direction.

"That's the point, my love. Besides, great and powerful Time Lord, are you really saying you can be stopped so easily from getting what you want?" She taunted, having fun winding him up as she tried to contain her chuckles. Then she shrieked again, erupting into laughter and shouting the Doctor's name as he had managed to come up behind her and catching her by surprise.

"I always get what I want," he growled in her ear, grinning as she swatted at him playfully.

When she realized his plan, she turned to him and begged, her eyes wide and doe-like. "Doctor, please don't." At last, the look in her eyes broke him and he kissed her on the nose.

"Fine, wife. You win. We'll keep your side of the pillow fort up and we won't jump on it no matter how much fun it is to fall into a pillow heaven. _So_, you can stop guarding it with your ninja assassin skills," he said pointedly, even as he looked mournfully back at the enormous pile encompassing half of the room that once represented his side of the fort.

"Hardly ninja, Sweetie."

"Well, how else do you explain this?" he asked, accusingly indicating her perfectly engineered and still unperturbed fort.

"I'm _very_ good," she purred into his jaw, making him laugh out loud even as he picked her up, tossing her onto the remains of _half_ of his well-executed plan (thank you very much, River Song.)

"That you are," he agreed, cuddling her as he buried his nose in her hair, delighted that she had taken his idea to build the biggest pillow fort ever seriously- and that he'd been able to give her a piece of the childhood she had missed, even if it had taken them all night and a large portion of the day to achieve it with all their covert sabotage of the other person once it had grown large enough to warrant sides.

"What now, Doctor?" River whispered, lying contentedly on their makeshift bed as she stared fondly at her own still-standing masterpiece.

He grinned mischievously; thoughts of how she'd brilliantly taken down his fort, without ever allowing her own to be damaged running through his mind, and he came up with a clever plan of revenge.

"Well, wife- I would think that would be obvious," he said, discreetly preparing himself.

"You mean-?" she asked, smiling up at him even as she pulled him toward her.

"Yes," he said, swinging his hand forward quickly and catching her off guard once more, "PILLOW FIGHT!"

Her answering shout and his burst of laughter as he ran from his wife's wrath could be heard all the way to the kitchen, their war raging through most of the day amidst screaming and giggles from both sides. The only casualty spared was River's fort, which the Doctor couldn't bring himself to destroy even in retribution.

And so it turned out that even River Song and her Doctor loved those rare domestic days when pillow fights and elaborately built forts took precedence over danger and monsters. But then again, together, they always did manage to find the best adventure in everything.


End file.
